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Rescue Turns Stray and Feral Cats Into Working Cats

2 min read

By Kendall Curley May 09, 2018 at 03:03PM

Many people love the feeling that comes with rescuing an animal from a shelter, and cats have long been used as an efficient pest control system for barns, warehouses and other businesses throughout the world. So one shelter decided to start a working cat adoption program to bring these two worlds together.

Dumb Friends League’s Adopt a Working Cat program aims to find stray cats and feral cats—that may not have the ideal temperaments for indoor living—homes where they can have a sense of freedom and a job like pest control. They have found that these kitties make excellent barn cats and pest deterrents in warehouses, breweries and other semi-outdoor work environments.

They explain the logic behind the working cat program by saying, “Some cats that we receive at our shelter are better candidates for adoption into outdoor environments. Some have been accustomed to living outdoors at their previous home and are unable to adjust to an indoor environment. Others make better hunters than lap cats. Still others are less social with people, but thrive in outdoor environments.”

All cats adopted out through the program are spayed/neutered, microchipped and vaccinated so that they are healthy and ready to work. And they explain, “We require adopters to ensure that all working cats have warm shelter, adequate food and water, and that they receive regular veterinary care—just as with any cat we adopt out from our shelters.”

CBS Local reports that Scott Tucker, owner of Mother Tucker Brewery in Thornton, Colorado, “adopted his cat Blondie more than a year ago to help with the mice and rats on his property. He says since she’s been around the rodents have disappeared.” And that is just one of the many success stories of these hardworking professional kitties.

This cat adoption program provides stray cats and feral cats that would otherwise be considered unadoptable a second chance—what can be more heartwarming than that? And to top it off, they even waive adoption fees for working cats in order to encourage people to consider them as a valuable addition to their workplace.